June 2023
Dear new Games student,
Welcome to ITU’s Games program! Welcome to our community where play is considered a crucial aspect of human life and where we are proud to be at the forefront of challenging and establishing where, how, and why people (and animals, even technologies!) play.
In our program we do everything we can to build a learning environment that is safe and comfortable for all of you to try out things without fear of failing. We want you to experiment and explore as well as proudly succeed in creating new contexts and technologies for play. Our community is diverse in many ways, not least because the researchers’ expertise and students’ interests in game development vary a lot.
Our programme is run according to these values:
- We cherish and embrace diversity. (Our newest addition to diversity considerations will kick off in Autumn 2023: a mentorship program for women offered by our partners in the local games industry.)
- We empower by offering autonomy.
- We explore the depth and the cutting edge of research and innovation together.
- We practice cross-disciplinarity with empathy and professionalism.
- We value communication skills as highly as technical ones.
By now, you know something about us from the materials online, maybe word of mouth. And we know something about you from your letter of motivation, from the games you have made. Soon it will be the time to meet face to face and to start working on your education together. We have a bunch of things we want to make sure you learn, but your education will be most beneficial when you have a thought or two about what you, specifically, are good at and what do you want to gain from our program. It is good - but of course not always ideal or possible - to know where you may want to go after graduation. Think about it actively and work towards it through choices in elective courses and project. Networking is a part of this, too. In our view and in practice, our students can go to a whole lot of places from established and indie game studios to companies, organisations, and institutions where play and games play a part in product, experience, or service development and use.
Our university and program are tightly connected to many local and international events for studying and developing games, such as game jams. Please come prepared to join extracurricular activities as we consider these valuable additions to your professional development. Similarly, we bring industry professionals to the classroom to teach, share, and give feedback. We consider it important to connect you to the industry during your studies with us. We also leverage the existing strong game development and play cultures and industries in Northern Europe and Europe in general for study purposes as examples and traditions to learn from.
I personally hope that you look forward to a couple of years of intense yet exciting work together with your peers.
Enjoy the summer and see you soon! We can’t wait to meet you on campus!
Hanna Wirman,
Head of Programme in Games